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Spinning whirling sinking down into the depths of Tartarus, the sucking sludge and sickening bursts of monster creation with crackling fires and the moans of misery rising like poison, like black blood, like the fluids, the fluids I sent at Aklys, that I nearly drowned her in.
Poisons I still feel rising and boiling and pressing inside me sometimes, like now. When I wait to hear voices like Kronos or one of the giants, or Gaea, or Mrs Dodds again. But I don't hear them, I only hear myself, the words I had been thinking:
I want to see just how much misery Misery can take.
I feel my stomach churning and my shoulders are tightening, there's a throbbing in them and in my neck, all around it is a pressure as I see her eyes, suddenly - not dark and empty, no; she's... worried for me. Why would she be?
"Percy -"
And then she's scared, she's terrified, she doesn't want to be anywhere near me anymore, if this is what I can do -
"Percy, can you hear me?"
I don't even blame her, if I'm alone it'll mean no one else will get hurt anymore
"Percy!" Her voice is urgent. Suddenly I feel pressure, a grip full of strength. Not squeezing or shaking, just holding on. "Come on, seaweed brain, wake up!"
And then I haul in a huge breath and open my eyes. They're burning, and my whole back hurts as I curl forward and sort of groan, even as I gasp her name
"Annabeth -"
"Yeah, I'm here." Her voice is shaky, and that makes me feel worse, even sicker as I look up into the darkness and see her, mostly in shadow as she pushes back her hair, the edges of it shining white in the flat glare of light through one window in our place.
It's never completely quiet in the apartment, which is proved right now as a siren starts up and the sound of tires on the road joins in probably echoing off buildings. We're closer to center of the city than Upper East where Mom and Paul still are, so that's part of it.
That and the fact we live pretty much above and next to a firehouse.
I almost wonder if I should joke that Annabeth might need to call the firefighters, but even as I start to say "Hey, maybe-"
"Stop," her breathing trembles as her words rush out and she puts her palm on my chest. "You don't have to do that," her voice as much as the look in her eyes tell me not to joke. "Just - talk to me, Percy. What were you dreaming about? What did you see?"
What did I see, other than what I am? What I was, at least, after everything- and with all the crap we've been through, can you blame me? But I feel my mouth go dry even while I'm THINKING that, because it sounds too close to a justification. Whether it was Luke justifying what made him choose to follow Kronos, or Apollo's for letting someone like Octavian slide. Or even me thinking I'm a good enough guy by making what ended up being an empty promise to Calypso. Like Hercules- excuse me, Annabeth taught me how to say his name right - Herakles.
I didn't use to be like him, but am I, now? ...what did I see?
I look at Annabeth, who's still looking at me with her eyebrows crinkled in what seems to be going from exasperation to worry.
Or maybe it's the other way around.
"Nothing good," I tell her. "Tartarus."
I figure that's enough, and I guess it is, because she shudders and comes in close to wrap her arms around me. "Thank the gods we made it through," she mumbles against my shoulder.
"Thank something, at least," I say, resting my head to hers and flexing my fingers as I carefully encircle her shoulders with my arms. I'm sweating, which is probably nasty, but she doesn't wrinkle her nose at me for once. Her eyes seem to be tracking my arms, their ropy and stitch like scars, some burns on my chest that might've been there since I fought the Chimera (fought being a very strong word for what my twelve-year-old-self had actually done, which was dodge and duck and roll around the confined space of the Gateway Arch, going nuts hundreds of feet in the air. And then I remember jumping OUT of the air)
"Die, faithless one," Echidna rasped, and the Chimera sent a blast of fire directly towards my face.
Father, help me, I prayed. My clothes on fire, poison coursing through my veins, I plunged towards the Mississippi River far below.
I say this quoting myself to myself the best I can remember it from a book written by our camp scribe; one of at least fifteen he has written now. Has a pretty sweet deal I guess, churning out these things; all this stuff mortals have the luxury of thinking is fiction.
They never wake up sweating or almost puking from nightmares.
At least, I hope they never do.
Price of being a demigod. Well. One of them.
But we also aren't alone. We have people who understand what we deal with. Understand us.
As for Annabeth, I think she understands more about me sometimes than I do about myself. It's probably not even that whole wise girl thing, more just because she's known me for so long. Like she knew how to stop me before I went into a joke, otherwise she wouldn't have heard the truth of what I'd been seeing.
And I know Annabeth, so I know how much that would have bothered her.
Now she's here laying next to me, my lower back is resting on her arm, and I feel the residual tingling of that anchoring, myself to my mortal life, my body like a spring or the loop of a harness when you're bungee jumping (although I wouldn't know exactly if that's true, I've never been on an actual bungee line other than if you call whatever that sometimes is in the gymnastics classes for little kids. Yeah, my mom took me to one when I was little. Don't ask.)
Although it probably was a way of her training me, or getting me ready for what I'd be doing once I learned I was a demigod. Sure, we watched old movies. It wasn't just the one about Jason and the Argonauts, there was also the one with Medusa and my namesake Perseus. Crash of the- Clash of the Titans. That was cool, the guy even had black hair like mine. And Andromeda was pretty and blonde.
"Uhh I was dreaming about... Misery, and what I did to her. What I wanted to do. And I guess I thought - what if I wanted to just -" I make a sharp movement with my hand, and Annabeth finishes my question for me.
She's good at that.
"What, you wanted to choke the life out of her?"
"Or... poison it. Smother it. Something," I say. "And I mean ...I guess when I was dreaming, or when you woke me up- I thought, what if I was still doing it? Or what if I did that, or something like it- now?"
Annabeth is quiet. I twist my head to look at her and she deliberately turns and looks at me. She grips the edge of my shirt, white-knuckles it, basically.
"Percy. You're a great person, who's been through a lot. And I think, even if you don't actually act on it..." She pauses and I'm tracing her features in the moonlight, the slope of her nose, the strength of her jaw and chin and lips, the way her hair curls-
Sorry, got distracted.
Her voice goes so low I lean even closer to her and only just hear it.
"If you did, I'd understand."
"You would?" I feel a clench and rush and ache as she looks at me with those blazing dark eyes of hers and gives me a sharp nod.
"Of course I would. We've been through hellish things, Percy. Especially recently."
"I mean, it wasn't tOo bad," I say, and it's worth it just to see her roll her eyes and shove me.
"Okay, Seaweed Brain. Whatever you say."
I pull her in closer and hold on tightly. "Whatever I say, I'm s- I'm glad you're here. And I know I - I'm lucky to know you, Annabeth." I don't say have her, because I can't. She has herself. She's worked really hard to do that. I'm just lucky to be here, and to know that she chooses to be here with me.
She gets this almost smile on her face, and her lips brush my cheek as she keeps holding on to me.